Digitalization and energy consumption. Does ICT reduce energy demand?
数字化与能源消耗：信息通信技术（ICT）能减少能源需求吗？
Author: Steffen Lange（斯特芬·兰格）、Johanna Pohl（约翰娜·波尔）、Tilman Santarius（蒂尔曼·桑塔里尤斯）
Source：《Ecological Economics》2020 Volume176
Abstract: This article investigates the effect of digitalization on energy consumption. Using an analytical model, we investigate four effects: (1) direct effects from the production, usage and disposal of information and communication technologies (ICT), (2) energy efficiency increases from digitalization, (3) economic growth from increases in labor and energy productivities and (4) sectoral change/tertiarization from the rise of ICT services. The analysis combines empirical and theoretical findings from debates on decoupling energy consumption from economic growth and from debates on green IT and ICT for sustainability. Our main results: Effects 1 and 3 tend to increase energy consumption. Effects 2 and 4 tend to decrease it. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the two increasing effects prevail so that, overall, digitalization increases energy consumption. These results can be explained by four insights from ecological economics: (a) physical capital and energy are complements in the ICT sector, (b) increases in energy efficiency lead to rebound effects, (c) ICT cannot solve the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from exergy, (d) ICT services are relatively energy intensive and come on top of former production. In future, digitalization can only boost sustainability when it fosters effects 2 and 4 without promoting effects 1 and 3.
文摘：本文研究了数字化对能源消耗的影响。利用分析模型，我们考察了四种效应：（1）信息通信技术（ICT）在生产、使用和处置过程中产生的直接效应；（2）数字化带来的能源效率提升；（3）劳动和能源生产率提高所引致的经济增长；（4）由于ICT服务兴起导致的部门变革/第三产业化。本分析结合了关于能源消耗与经济增长脱钩辩论中的实证与理论发现，以及关于绿色IT和ICT促进可持续性辩论中的相关成果。主要结果显示：效应1和3倾向于增加能源消耗；效应2和4倾向于减少能源消耗。此外，我们的分析表明，两种增加效应占据主导地位，因此总体而言，数字化增加了能源消耗。这些结果可以通过生态经济学的四个洞见来解释：（a）在ICT部门中，实物资本与能源是互补关系；（b）能源效率的提高会导致回弹效应；（c）ICT无法解决经济增长与有效能脱钩的难题；（d）ICT服务具有相对较高的能源密集性，且是在原有生产基础上的叠加。未来，数字化只有在促进效应2和4而不助长效应1和3的情况下，才能推动可持续发展。
Keywords: digitalization; decoupling; economic growth; energy efficiency; energy consumption; ICT
编译：刘鑫
